Kids love gadgets. I should know, I'm a kid at heart and love gadgets as well. I love shiny metal and plastic do-dads with luminous screens, slots, switches, and buttons - oh lord the buttons!
I've watched my students run around with their cellphones gleefully. Cellphones, I should add, that are much newer and nicer than mine. And these devices are not so much a communication tool, but the expected solution to everything.
How so?
Well, I've seen students recording class lectures on their cellphone, so they don't have to listen so closely while being there. I've seen students searching up words on their phone's multilingual dictionaries to cut corners in homework. I've seen kids taking photos of the whiteboard as a substitute for writing down notes.
All in all this seems like a likely tool for cheating, but I'm more bothered by the laziness it develops. How lazy/busy do you have to be as a student to go, "Write down my homework? Screw that. *snap* I'll check that later. I got shit to do. The fellas are expecting me over by the see-saw in 5 minutes, and I ain't got no time for notebooks, pencils, and other antiques."
If I could go back in time 100 years and show that scene to people, I don't know who would be more offended: A writer, a photographer, or a teacher.
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